


The World I Wanted

by Moira Bathory (Midnightsecho)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Ambiguous Relationship, Dream life projection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 12:40:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13613568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Midnightsecho/pseuds/Moira%20Bathory
Summary: During a mission, a strange creature attacks Lance, sending him into the perfect future. Back home, waking up to the sound of his siblings, cuddling up with a certain someone.It's fleeting, and when Keith comes to help him, he gets a glimpse of the world the creature makes for him, and learns a little about his friend in the process.





	The World I Wanted

If you asked Lance, he would tell you that he had incredible reflexes.  
Granted, if you asked him, he would tell you that he had incredible anything, because that was how he was as a person. But at least, with the reflex thing, he was entirely, 100% not bluffing.  
They were great.

So that this thing had managed to get the jump on him was something extremely unexpected. He’d hardly seen it coming with how well it blended into the scenery, didn’t even know that such a creature even existed nor that it was hostile. But man was it ever, with small but sharp tendrils piercing through his armor and into his skin. Though he shook his arm to get the thing off, even resorting to whacking it against the wall, the edge of his vision began to darken, and he felt incredibly dizzy all of a sudden. He did manage to say something over the comms, but whether it was coherent and even helpful, Lance didn’t know, as the world around him faded into darkness and he collapsed to the hard ground.

At first, he figured he must have gotten a concussion, because even before he saw any light, he could smell the salty air of the sea. The floor was no longer hard and cold, but warm, soft, and shifted slightly.  
Lance opened his eyes, blinking at the offending sunlight streaming through a nearby window to a mess of black hair sleeping soundly next to him. They were on a bed- his bed, back at home-, and it was summer. He could hear faint noises in the distance, his siblings bickering about something or other and the clang of pans in the kitchen.  
He sat up and, no sooner had he done so, did his mother knock on their ajar door.  
“Good morning, breakfast is going to get cold,” she warned them. Beside him, Keith groaned and sat up as well, his hair an endearing mess, and gave her a small thumbs up.  
No one seemed to notice Lance’s confused looks. The world continued on as if he wasn’t sitting there with wide eyes. Keith slipped out of bed and to a worn red suitcase.  
“Pfft, you’re wearing my shorts,” Lance felt himself comment. He could see Keith’s shoulders shrug while he searched in the suitcase.  
“Pretty sure we’re past the point of ‘that’s mine’,” he replied, holding a hand up. The sunlight caught on a silver band and a small diamond around his finger.

And then it was covered by a shirt tossed at his face.  
“Hey!” he exclaimed, annoyed, and when he managed to pull it off his face and onto his body, Keith was sitting there with that playful little smirk he always bore, but it seemed brighter- maybe because of the sunlight or something.  
It made Lance smile. He put a foot down on the floor and went to stand when the world became fuzzy. Everything shifted out of focus and for a moment, he could have sworn he heard Keith calling out to him, absolutely terrified.  
The sound didn’t feel necessary. Lance could feel no urgency, even as his world shifted like a glitching game.

The scenery changed to a kitchen that wasn’t his own. A round wooden table sat before him. There was a little girl sitting at the table, coloring, a dog snoozing in the warm rays from the window, and Keith again, sitting across from them with a warm mug of something. This place did not smell like sea salt, but rather that warm cabin smell with a vague hint of coffee. Some of it looked familiar; the view from the window especially, vast expanses of sand and a red speeder parked next to the building. It was Keith’s shack, but at the same time it wasn’t. It was bigger, with more rooms. There was an actual table rather than a plank upon cinder blocks, and photos on the walls that were too blurry to make out.  
“Did you bring the laundry in?” Lance heard his own voice from a different room, and this Keith turned to it just as the real Lance did. “Shiro’s going to be here any minute.”  
“Uncle Shiro!” cheered the little girl, grinning. “I hope he likes my drawing.”

And all of a sudden, that world too, was gone.

It felt like being startled awake from a dream, a strange feeling in his chest coupled with a hard time catching his breath. No longer sunny and warm, he was aware of the cold ground beneath him first, then the pain in his arm where the stingers had dug in, and then Keith.  
But this was the real Keith, with his violet outfit the creature tried to tear through.  
Right. That creature, the one that jumped him. Keith tried tearing at it, but it became evident that even his stubbornness couldn’t fight the thing, eyes glossing over as the hand trying to pull it off of himself fell.  
He slumped. His shoulders dropped.

Lance shot it. The thing shrieked, let go and shriveled up at Keith’s feet. He too awoke with a gasp and a fit of coughs. Like being startled awake. It didn’t matter that he had spent less time under that thing’s toxin than Lance had, it still felt like a jarring punch and he was struggling to catch his breath even while Lance stood up and offered him a hand.  
Keith took it, allowed him to pull him up and was startled to be pulled into a hug. Startled, but not ungrateful, and returned it.  
“You alright?” he asked, looking worried.  
“I- Yeah. I was… Just about to ask you that,” Keith replied. They stood there for a moment, awkward silence enveloping them, before Lance looked at the gross little monstrosity near their feet.  
“Um… That thing, it makes people see stuff they want, right?” Lance asked after a moment. Keith’s reply was a shrug. He did not know any more about it than Lance did; he had simply seen it attached to him and tore it off.  
“I guess,” he replied.  
“I.. I think when you touched it, you confused it and… I might have seen a little bit of the… World, dream thing? It made for you?”   
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Keith replied coldly, and he backed away from Lance, walking off. Taken aback despite how typical a reaction it was, Lance froze momentarily, then hurried to catch up with him.  
“Well, I do!” exclaimed Lance. Keith didn’t look at him. He just continued walking, but Lance was not about to let him shut him out that easily. Not without a fight.  
“For some reason, we were both in each other’s. And if that means what I think it does-”  
“It doesn’t,” Keith interrupted, not letting him finish his sentence. Lance dropped his shoulders and sighed. This wasn’t working. He needed a different approach.  
They walked in silence for some time, and as they drew near to Red, he knew that his time was running short.

“Your dream world was pretty plain. I expected like… Flying through space fighting things, a life of action. Not…”  
“A family?” Keith supplied. Lance shrugged.  
“Well, yeah,” he said. It was so quiet and mundane and normal.  
“Why? You think I like fighting?” Keith asked, and he stopped to look at Lance with furrowed brows. “ I don’t. I’m not just some feisty fighting machine that you can point at things and order it to destroy. I want everyone to go home safely.”  
Right. Lance remembered something about Shiro coming to visit, and the pieces finally clicked. Keith fought hard so that they could not only all go home, but go home safely without fear of some awful alien race coming to destroy them at any moment. Which was why they had to take down the Galra. Which was why they couldn’t just run home. Because if they did, there may not be a home to be at before long.

“What. Stop staring at me,” Keith said, and Lance blinked realizing that he had, in fact, been staring as he thought.  
“Sorry. That’s just… Really sweet of you,” he said cooly, and nudged him with his elbow. Though Keith didn’t smile at the compliment, the anger faded from his eyes. He gave a sheepish shrug and a nod of acknowledgement. With that anger sated, Lance decided that he could safely tease him again without worrying about being blown up on.  
“Are you gonna tell me what our daughter’s name is?” he asked.  
A sharp ‘no’ was all he was rewarded with, and a dark violet shape walking past him.  
Lance laughed fondly.


End file.
